


Wherever You Go

by codenamecynic



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, Unexpected Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 05:40:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16612964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: The party finds themselves in the city of Silverymoon and become embroiled in a new crisis when they encounter Harper's estranged brother in the marketplace. Long buried family issues suddenly coming to the fore, Katy attempts to help Harper distract himself, arranging an unorthodox liaison with an attractive stable master that turns into an unexpected sharing of emotions on the eve before battle.





	Wherever You Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fionavar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionavar/gifts).



> Dedicated to the lovely perahn for her birthday <3 (Sorry about the sadness)

When Vigo turns up at the appointed hour in the taproom of The Dancing Goat, Harper can’t help but be a little bit surprised.

Not that Katy's persistent flirtation on his behalf was entirely unconvincing. In fact, the single-mindedness of the approach might have been alarming if he wasn’t inclined to make it half a joke, the tack something nearer to _madame with wares to peddle and a steep mortgage to pay_ than he is used to seeing his young friend.

Friend. Sister. Daughter. Sister-daughter.

Good lord.

Maybe it’s exactly what he deserves then, pimped out for his own good. That doesn’t immediately follow, but then he’s done much stranger, much stupider things. It will make Katy happy, and it isn’t like he can’t use the distraction. Two birds, one stone.

It’s possible that this analogy technically makes his dick the stone, but the fewer deep thoughts he devotes to any of this, the better.

He’s a good looking man, Vigo. Tall and blond and broad, he stands apart from most elves in the city in all but the tightness of his pants. Still, he seems kind. A useless observation perhaps; to Harper that never really matters as much as it should.

Not that he’s looking for another Festus, not yet, not so soon. That was a foolish, impulsive avenue to pursue for all that it served its purpose at the time, but he can still feel the weight of Shay’s clinical assessment, Khem’s brow-furrowing incomprehension, Katy’s filterless concern, and he has no desire to add Jorran’s righteous disapproval to the burden of that memory.

But he doesn’t have to think about that now. All he has to do is get Vigo upstairs, and there is likely to be very little thinking at all.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“It isn’t often I find myself the recipient of such an invitation.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Vigo laughs, charming in his lack of embarrassment, and sips the wine poured for him. A drink, as promised. “I take that to be a compliment, from someone such as yourself. I cannot imagine you require any… assistance in such matters.”

“You mean Ceitidh?”

“The keeper of the lovely Panpan, yes. Your… friend.”

The word is almost a question and it makes him shake his head. “Friend, yes. Rather too close for comfort at times, it would seem. I hope that was not…” he lingers over the word, trying to choose the right one. “Uncomfortable. For you. You aren’t under any obligation, if-”

 _“Non, non._ I am here, am I not?”

Harper smiles. “So you are.”

*

It doesn’t really take any convincing to move them up the stairs. Harper leads the way to his rented room, back straight and half-empty bottle in one hand, down the hall to the last door on the left with Vigo’s quiet footsteps close behind.

He smells good, like strong soap and earth after the rain and only faintly of horses, politely bathed and in fresh clothes despite the quip about washing off the dirt of the day. His long blond hair falls gleaming down his back, smooth and unruffled with an annoyingly manicured ease that implies an innate elven magic or some other romanticized bullshit from one of Katy’s novels.

What it really says is that Vigo took the time to clean the dirt from under his fingernails and run a comb through his hair, and Harper hasn’t even had the wherewithal to shove yesterday’s clothing off the end of his bed. It isn’t exactly the plush abode of some wanton lothario, not a single velvet cushion in sight. Instead, he finds himself sweeping two daggers and a whetstone into his bag and off the table, shrugging at the mess of freshly procured rations and equipment stacked in one corner.

“I apologize, this isn’t usually…” That already sounds bad.

“Is there a usually?” Vigo doesn’t miss a beat, one brow pulled upward faintly as he leans against the door, but there is nothing of displeasure in his tone when Harper searches it for judgement. Only some kind of gentle amusement cut through with patience, as though Harper is young and foolish and forgivably new.

Perhaps to Vigo he is. He’s gotten so used to the lines worry and wear etch into human faces that the smooth, ageless countenance of elves seems strange. No wonder Vigo seems unbothered by his mess and his run-amok mouth; Harper will be nothing more than a distant memory by sunrise, a half-forgotten moment in the stretch of his long years.

He isn’t sure whether that makes him regretful or relieved. He doesn’t answer, but Vigo doesn’t seem to need him to, curling away from the wall to put their empty glasses down on the table and speculatively eye the assorted pile of Jorran’s neglected gear. “A great journey you plan then, no? I almost envy you. To be out of the city, the open road… _très romantique.”_

“Is that something that interests you?”

“Adventure? Me? No, no,” Vigo laughs, but not unkindly. “I have my sanctuary, my horses. This, I’m afraid, is the extent of my grand travails. Such things are for young men.”

“They do have their uses.”

He’s being lurid and unsubtle, and Vigo turns his head to look at him, the corners of his mouth lifting pleasantly to echo the raising of his brows. He truly is lovely, all golden hair and sun-bronzed skin, but more than that he smiles with both halves of his mouth and nothing about it seems ingenuine.

On impulse Harper puts down the wine, steps in close, kisses him. The smell of leather and sunshine is stronger, almost cloyingly elven, but the callused palm that reaches to cup the back of his neck is pleasantly common, strong fingers curling into his hair. The fabric under his hands is not expensive, plain spun and worn to softness, and something about it soothes in a way he does not expect.

It’s a dangerous sort of thing, not knowing which mask he should wear. They end up pressed against the windowsill where the late-setting sun oozes honeyed and warm, cushioned by the open curtains. He hasn’t given them enough attention to even guess their pattern, and suddenly he finds himself reminded of Jarnath and his eager mouth, the sharp teeth and sharper words, dark and distant as promises unkept.

But Vigo is too tall for the comparison to be more than just pointed ears and good taste in wine. There is nothing of the wild rushing, the insistence, the demand, and also nothing of the danger. Perhaps this still is not the wisest of decisions that he’s ever made, but it’s a fair wager that he has not imperiled himself in choosing as he has.

For once. He curls his fists into the long golden hair that falls forward against his face and refuses to think at all about Artiniel.

Maybe that’s why he drives them to the bed, why he’s the one to push things forward, hands slipping beneath loosened clothing to the bare skin beneath. Vigo, for all his ease and patience, is already hard beneath the leather breaches he wears, and when Harper slides his hand downward to cover the length of him with the palm of his hand, he shivers elegantly and pulls his mouth away.

“Please forgive me, I’m afraid it has been some time since I…”

“When?” Perhaps it’s impolite to ask, but the flush that rises beneath tawny skin is compelling, staining throat and chest as Harper curls his hand around the heat of him.

“Six- seven years, perhaps?”

“So long?”

Vigo chuckles and reaches out to cup his cheek, the movement almost fond. “It must seem an age to you, no doubt.”

It does, but then… well, it doesn’t. Not in every way. Not, he supposes, in the ways that count.

“Was it someone special to you?”

And why in the fuck would he ask that? It isn’t the sort of thing that he brings into these liasons, as temporary as they are by design. And certainly not with a cock in his hand. He’s not some wide eyed innocent to fabricate fables of love, or to believe in anything but the sordid truths that hide behind such tales. And yet here he is, like a fool, complicating the simplest of things with sentimentality because he woke up with a hole in his heart.

So stupid. That, at least, never changes.

“For a time,” Vigo murmurs, eyes half-lidded and thoughtful. They’re green and bright like the sun through leaves, and even with a hand wrapped around his naked cock, they don’t leave Harper’s face. “It is difficult to maintain passion, sometimes, when one lives so long. Not all things are meant to last past the bloom.”

“That seems sad.”

“It can be.”

And all of a sudden he wants to cry. What in the fiery fucking hells is he doing? This is not the time, nor the place to be- to be-

What. Having emotions? _Feeling?_ Right, because sex is meaningless and this is just a lark, some trivial thing to amuse Katy with later. It isn’t even about him, really.

If that’s not the saddest fucking thing of all, he doesn’t know what is.

He’s stopped at some point and he can’t even be sure when, half-straddled over a pleasant stranger in some city that smells too much like flowers. Vigo’s cock is still flushed and swollen despite his absent-minded attentions, lying heavy against the flat of his stomach when it slips from his grasp. Vigo pillows his head on his arm in a pose that feels so familiar it burns, and Harper has to look away, at anything but into eyes so unexpectedly aware.

He makes himself laugh. “I’m sorry, this isn't at all what you were promised. Let me-”

“Harper-”

“Taliesin,” he corrects, before he can think better of it and before he can figure out why. “My name is Taliesin.”

“A moment then, Taliesin,” Vigo echoes back to him softly, the syllables strangely shaped on his tongue. “I will not take offense if you’ve changed your mind,” he says, and again when Taliesin can’t bear to say anything at all. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

He isn’t sure why that stops him in his tracks, slurring his forward momentum, but it touches on something raw and hollow deep inside his chest, makes it pang with a heart-juttering stutter. It’s so hard to look at anything, at the light in the room, at the pretty blond man beneath him, at the dark shadow of himself that cuts across the bed like a blade, the end of a seam as it comes unthreaded.

“Taliesin-”

“I’d like to,” he manages eventually, leaning down to press his mouth against the top of Vigo’s hip, the smooth, untarnished skin of his side. He can feel Vigo go still beneath him, quiet tension strung like a wire winding taut though he doesn’t permit himself to move. Only now does Taliesin feel like he can meet his eyes, looking up at him through his lashes. It could be coy but he doesn’t feel it, only contrition, an eagerness to please that he’s sure says something damning about himself. “Truly, I would.”

Vigo considers him for a long moment, as though waiting for him to take it back. When he doesn’t he nods, his hand sliding to rest ever so gently on Taliesin’s shoulder when he takes the length of him into his mouth.

He doesn’t hurry, taking his time, making it _good_. He still knows how to do that at least. Taliesin narrows his focus, shutting out everything else but the velvet texture of damp skin under his tongue, the faint smell of sweat, the taste of salt, and quiet sounds of pleasure, encouragements spoken in an amalgam of two languages, the weight of a hand curled gently at the back of his neck.

It doesn’t last as long as it might have; he doesn’t feel the need to tease, to drag it out, to make anyone suffer. When Vigo’s hips start to quake, little shudders that have him bucking upward into his mouth, Taliesin takes him deep and holds him as he comes.

He's hard now. He wasn't before, the sudden realization faintly reassuring though he doesn't hang any hopes on the knowledge, no expectations for the moment even as Vigo takes his chin and kisses his mouth, heedless of the taste of himself on Taliesin’s lips. Not even as he turns himself over on his stomach and pulls Taliesin down on top of him.

“This isn't- Are you certain?”

“Of course. Would you... prefer to pretend I am someone else?”

Taliesin shakes his head. “No. I wouldn’t do you the insult. And anyway, I’m not sure… I’m not sure it would help.”

“A love lost, then.”

It isn't a question and he doesn't have to answer, his hands steadier and more sure with the bottle of oil than he expects them to be. “To my own foolish devices.”

Vigo shifts at the press of his fingers, sighs. “Did you love him very much?”

“More than anything.”

“Does he still live?”

“I don't know. I hope so.”

“Then it's not too late.”

He isn't sure that's true, has never been sure of anything beyond how uncertain he feels, how unclear the details, but it is a kind thing to say from someone who is under no obligation to be so. If he doesn’t think too hard about it, it almost feels believable.

Vigo groans into the sheets as he eases himself forward, slow and careful until he’s in to the hilt. They stay that way for ages, unhurried, his kisses scattered across the breadth of a strong back and suntanned shoulders. When they finally move they move together, rocking in a motion like waves at low tide licking softly up the shore, and Vigo laces their fingers together, gentle and intimate like they are lovers and not just ships passing in the dark.

It’s… nice. There is something, he supposes, to being in the moment. To letting himself enjoy it, to be present in it instead of a thousand miles away, running as fast as he can from things he’d rather just forget.

It’s a nice change, he thinks, from using. From being used.

_Know that you are not disposable._

The words float back to him of their own accord and he immediately shuts them out again, closing them behind a door in his mind that slams, bolts and locks.

Always the right words from the wrong places; always the right sentiment at the wrong time.

The right choice for the wrong reasons.

The lump in his throat makes it hard to breathe, strangling, the fluid motion of his hips and the effort of their bodies robbing him of air in increments until he feels as though he’s swum too deeply down, the surface but a haze of light above him as cold, dark currents tangle around his feet and threaten to claim what prizes they can keep.

Khem would not relish the idea of her words echoing in his head at a moment like this.

Vigo pulls his hand to his mouth, kisses his wrist. Taliesin lays his head against the back of his shoulder and stops thinking about anything at all.

At least he has no problem making it last. It isn’t his most spectacular of efforts, but Vigo doesn’t seem to mind. He is also in no particular rush to leave afterwards, lying back in the pillows with the sheets tangled around his hips and chest bare to the warmth in the room, watching Taliesin struggle to remember what to do. Eventually he lies back down, curling on his side, uncertain as a wild-caught foal when Vigo reaches to stroke his hair.

It’s a bit too on the nose and, flippant asshole that he is, he laughs. It’s as though he’s trying to be as offensive as possible, though honestly he isn’t, he’s just… off. None of this has gone to plan and now he’s drifting, half in and half out of his body, of his mind, of his plethora of clever personas. Somewhere under all of that is just _himself_ , and he doesn’t know what to do with that, or what that really even looks like anymore.

“What’s your name?” he asks, from nowhere. Vigo looks at him, one eyebrow raised. “The real one.”

“Truly?”

“You know mine.”

“Vaegotherithyl. It’s a bit of a mouthful, even for my kind.”

“It’s pretty. Katy would love it. Why don’t you use it?”

“Vigo is easier. Why don’t your friends call you Taliesin?”

Taliesin shrugs. “I don’t know. I haven’t really been Taliesin in a long time. I guess it’s just… easier.”

“To pretend to be something you are not?”

He shakes his head. “It's still me. Just less of me. Or more.”

Vigo looks at him for a long time, inscrutable, and then inclines his head as though somehow there is sense to be found in the unclear twist of words. Instinctively Taliesin braces himself, anticipating judgement, some incisive insight that will flay him open to the bone, but one is not forthcoming. Only the resumption of movement, a gentle hand across his side.

Vigo doesn't seem to need to fill the silence. They don't have to speak, but there are words tumbling in Taliesin’s head, end over end like stones pushed back and forth across the shoreline. He never has been much good at leaving things alone.

“Why did you agree to this?”

“It was the strangest proposition I have ever received.” Vigo laughs, not bothering to demure. “And I am quite old, comparatively speaking.”

Taliesin grimaces, sheepishly grins. “Unfortunate, but valid.”

Vigo smiles back at him, amused, indulgent. “I could tell how much you wanted to please your friend.”

“So you took pity on me. Thanks for that.”

“Is that more or less uncomfortable than saying that I felt drawn to your eyes?”

“My… eyes?”

“They are a curious shade.”

“Right… so, is this the part where you tell me your plan was to kill me and steal them all along?”

“Do you always deflect genuine compliments?”

“Pretty much.”

“At least you’re being honest.”

Ah. That cuts rather close to the vein, and he drops his gaze to the blankets between them, to the evening shadows that define the muscles in Vigo’s intervening arm.

“They also seem quite sad. I find I am attracted to that as well. And no, this is not where I murder you.”

Taliesin manages to summon half a smirk at the jest. “Is that why you do what you do? Take in all the unloved, outgrown ponies in Silverymoon?”

“Perhaps. There is nothing wrong in showing a bit of kindness to a creature in need.”

“That is alarmingly charitable.”

“Is it? It costs nothing but time and patience.”

“And hay.”

“A pragmatist _and_ a skeptic.” Vigo smiles, the expression almost rueful. “Perhaps I am better with horses than I am with people.”

Taliesin shakes his head, dismissing the claim with a shrug. “I think you know what you’re about. Even if you’re getting rather less than you deserve.”

“Perhaps next time I’ll bring a saddle and some spurs.”

“The horse thing,” he remembers, suddenly stricken. “What I said- Gods, that was - idiotic. I'm sorry, that was-”

“For someone else's benefit.”

“It was rude. I apologize. I am- well, a bit of an asshole, so I've been told.”

Vigo laughs, and somehow that's both better and worse. “I am not offended. It wouldn't be the first time an, ah- shall we say an _unhealthy attachment_ has been insinuated. It is perhaps a bit disappointing to discover that I really do only haul feed and muck stables.”

“It’s not.” Taliesin laughs. “You’re actually nice.”

“Nice?”

“I don’t mean that how it sounds.”

And he doesn’t mean to open himself up to the sort of look that Vigo fixes him with now; the sort that implies that he too is one of those creatures in need of care, some injured, broken-winged thing. He hates that.

“The other man, the one who shares your look. You are… brothers?”

“It still feels that way.”

“Estranged, then.”

“More like an exile.” He has no idea why he says that, why that word in particular trips on his tongue and falls right out of his mouth. It’s far more honest and straightforward than he usually is, but maybe he just wants to hear _someone_ say it out loud. Even if it has to be him.

“A difficult parting, then.”

“Perhaps more than I realized. He speaks as though I simply walked out the door one day and disappeared into the sea.”

“Was that not the case?”

“It was, after a fashion, but it wasn’t as if he had no part in it. Why he seems as though he feels that I abandoned him, I… forgive me. This can hardly interest you.”

Vigo shrugs artlessly. “It isn’t my business, perhaps, but there is no risk in my knowing if you want to discuss it. If you need to discuss it.”

“I shouldn’t. I don’t have much of a right.”

“You always have a right to your own feelings, or so it seems to me.” He blinks when Taliesin abbreviates an instinctive recoil, letting his hand fall away, empty against the mattress. “Is that displeasing?”

“No... It’s just a bit like listening to myself talking sometimes.”

“Always harder, that. Sometimes it must be easier to be silent.”

“Sometimes.”

And there is silence again, uncomfortable, as leading as a question. Eventually Vigo sighs, speaks. “That cannot always be the case. If you care for your brother, perhaps you should try. Tell him the things you bury in your heart.”

“That’s very poetic.”

“Well,” Vigo smiles. “I am what I am.”

“An elf?”

“That. And someone who spends most of his day speaking his mind to horses.”

“What secrets they must have to tell.”

“Oh, indeed, if only they could. But they care nothing for my trivialities, even if they seem significant to me. There is nothing harmed by their confidence.”

“And yours?”

“Is whatever you wish to make of it. I stand nothing to gain from your secrets, or your pain.”

And so... he tells him.

About Jorran. About Celeste. About his father and Arrabar and a million other disorganized things that come falling out of his mouth like water leaking in dribbles and drips from a spiderweb of cracks in a dam.

Not everything, not even most things, but more than he’s ever dared to say out loud, more than he’s put into words all these long years. Vigo lets him speak, and the words fill the quiet space, breaking its silence.

Afterwards he feels… he isn’t sure how he feels. Not empty, but not so overfull.

“Can you speak to no one about these things?”

“I can, or - well, they ask. But it never feels as simple as just the words.” Perhaps that’s why this is where he finds himself, spilling heart and soul to someone he hardly knows, to save himself the confusion, the judgement, the pity in their eyes. “They would never look at me the same way again.”

“Is that so bad a thing?”

“I don’t know. But it never seems like the right time to risk it. And now…”

“You’re going into danger.”

“And my old home. I don’t know what they may see, what they may encounter. They’re walking into a battle that has nothing to do with them, and they don’t even know me.”

He’s aware suddenly of where he is; of his nakedness beneath the sheet across his waist, the smooth wood of the headboard against his back, the deepness of night outside the window. They’ve been at this for some time; how long he can’t even say, arms curling around himself like he can draw back to center all the disparate pieces of himself he’s let float free.

“What you must think of me.”

Vigo shrugs. “It isn’t my place to judge. We all do what we must to survive.”

“But at what cost?”

“That is for _you_ to judge.”

“Now you sound like my brother.”

Vigo smiles at that, leans in to bridge the distance between them and carefully draws Taliesin back to him. “Hopefully not _so_ alike. Perhaps there I can change your mind.”

*

He sleeps with a stranger in a strange bed, deep and dreamless like the dead, and wakes before the sun starts to rise.

Taliesin walks Vigo back to the stables, shoulder to shoulder in the dawn’s earliest light. The city is still beautiful in the dim, the glow of street lamps and the glint of silver hidden everywhere like a scattering of stars. After weeks on the road, it feels oddly safe.

Vigo lends him two horses, loads them with tack and feed and refuses to take his money. The unwarranted generosity leaves him speechless, still distant from the usual cadence of his easily made conversation.

“You will be careful, yes?” Vigo crosses his arms and leans against the stable gate. “I would like to see you again, should you find yourself in Silverymoon.”

“Of course. I’ll bring your horses back to you, safe and sound. Fucking Panpan too.”

“And if your path takes you elsewhere…” He fixes Taliesin with a look so intense it makes his chest ache. “Try to be kind. Find something to like about yourself, Taliesin. Even if only something small.”

“I’ll try,” he says, because he doesn’t trust himself to say anything else, feeling the ache in his ribs when his heart beats too strongly against the inside of his chest.

Vigo nods, unmoving, unchanged, and lets him walk away.

“Hey Vigo,” he calls over his shoulder, turned back briefly when he meets the street. “Saddles and spurs next time?”

He can see Vigo smile, a sad, almost tired thing. _“Bon voyage,_ Harper. Wherever you go.”


End file.
